Our 10 favorite raw desserts

Last night we went to friends for dinner and we brought dessert. I was talking with our friend, Donna, about what to make and she suggested I go through the 500+ posts and select some of our favorites. I will be posting them for the next several days.

Here are our 10 favorite desserts:

Rawgalong

Raw Cacao Almond Butter Pie

Raw White Chocolate with Raspberry Tort

Raw Peppermint Chocolate Bars

Raw Mandarine Orange Caco Cheesecake

Raw Almond Ice Cream

Raw Cacao Cake with Ganache Frosting

Raw Apple Crumble

Raw Pumpkin Pie

Truffle and Raspberry Fool

Vegan Summer Gratin

We have an abundance of summer squash, poblano peppers, and new potatoes from our garden, so we made a Vegan Summer Gratin

Ingredients:
1 large summer squash
1-2 poblano pepper
3-5 new potato
1 onion

2 cup vegetable broth

6 oz plain unsweetened almond yogurt
1 cup daiya cheddar

Buckwheat topping
1/2 cup crispie buckwheat ground
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 TBS nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
Mix together

Directions: use a mandolin to slice the squash, pepper, potatoes, and the onion.  We layered each topped with daiya cheese half of the yogurt, and sprinkled the buckwheat topping. We repeated this one more time. The third layer didn't have any yogurt. Pour over the gratin the 2 cups of vegetable broth. The majority of the buckwheat topping went on the top layer. Bake 350 for 35 minutes

Fig Tartine

Our fig harvest has begun. I asked my sister, Laura, to send me some fig recipes. It just so happened that she was making Fig Tartine for lunch.

Here is her recipe
A slice of bread (I use a whole-grain country loaf for long slices), lightly toasted; spread a little goat cheese on the bread, then top with 1-2 slices prosciutto, 1 sliced fresh fig, sprinkle with more goat cheese. Broil 2-4 minutes, until cheese is bubbly/browning. Garnish with balsamic glaze and freshly sliced basil.

We have altered it to make a raw version.
Ingredients:
Garlic Raw Naan bread (we substituted olive oil for the sesame oil)
Almond feta
Eggplant bacon
Figs
Balsamic reduction

To assemble: The Naan bread is the base, spread the almond feta ove the bread, place the eggplant bacon on the cheese, top with sliced figs, add a dollop of almond feta, place a basil leaf over the cheese and drizzle with the balsamic reduction

Crispie Spiced Nuts

Many years ago my sister gave us a a recipe for spiced nuts from Williams-Sonoma. It has added fat (butter, oil,...) and sugar. They are AMAZING. We altered the recipe to make a healthier version. We sprouted the nuts in increase the absorption of the nutrients and digestibility. We also used the dehydrator keeping the nuts and enzymes live.

Ingredients
We first soak 5 cups of nuts in water for 8 hours. We used
1 1/2 cup walnuts
1 1/2 cup almonds
1 cup hazelnuts
1 cup pumpkin
After the nuts are soaked. We drain, rinse and drain.

Seasoning:
1 TBS ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
6 TBS maple syrup, honey could be used.
2 tsp salt

Directions: Mix the seasoning together. To the wet nuts, we hand tossed. Dehydrate at 105 for 18 to 24 hours.

Wild Rice Stuffed Peppers

We saw this recipe in Vegetarian times and altered it to fit our needs. This isn't burnt, just wild rice.

Ingredients:
4 large yellow peppers

1/2 cup almond feta
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 tsp cumin

3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup chopped dried figs
1/2 cup wild rice
3/4 cup water


Directions: Rinse rice well, prior to cooking. Cook the wild rice in the pomegranate juice, water and chopped figs. When rice is cooked, add the almond feta, cumin, and walnuts and mix well. Stuff peppers. Place peppers in a pan with 1/2" water and bake for 30 minutes at 400.

Jerk Mushrooms with a Mango Salsa

The recipe for jerk-spiced-portobello-mushrooms included cauliflower rice. We served ours over a bed of lettuce with the mango salsa.

Jerk Spiced Mushrooms

• 2 large portobellos, sliced into 3 or 4 chunky strips
• 2 teaspoons jerk seasoning (you can totally buy this readymade, but I provide the link for anyone not sure)
• 2 teaspoons coconut oil (melted)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Thumb-sized peice of ginger, minced
• 2 spring onions, cut at an angle
• 2 tablespoons tamari
• 2 teaspoons lime juice

1. Combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl (everything except the mushrooms).
2. Place the strips of mushroom in the marinade and ideally leave them overnight.  You can also ‘get away with’ about an hour of marinating.
3. Dehydrate at 46 degrees C (105 degrees F) for two to three hours.  As I mentioned in the intro, if you don’t have a dehydrator then just marinate them overnight before serving.

Mango Salsa

• Flesh of 1 ripe mango, cubed small
• Few sprigs of coriander (cilantro), finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons finely diced red onion
• Juice of 1 lime
• Pinch salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and serve with the mushrooms and bed of lettuce.

Raw Zucchini Feta Tart

We saw the recipe for Zucchini and Fresh Goat Cheese Tart in Vegetarian Times last month and altered it to make it raw. We used our raw onion bread recipe to make individual tart shells. We used Cheri's almond feta recipe for the cheese.

Raw Onion tart shells:

2.5-3 pounds of sweet onions, sliced or processed using the food processor

1 cup ground flax

1/2 cup ground crispie sunflower seeds

1/2 cup ground crispie pumpkin seeds

1/3 cup olive oil

3-4 TBS coconut aminos

Directions: Mix all the ingredients together. Use a 1/2 cup to make 8-10 tarts, and spread on a non-stick dehydrator sheet, we like the silicon ones. We made these round, but any shape will work. With the bread we spread the batter flat for the tarts leaving a lip. We dehydrated them for 12-16 hours at 105 until we were able to peal them off and transfer them to a mesh screen to continue drying for another 4-6 hours. These can be stored in the freezer for later use.

Tart filling for 8 tarts:

1 lb. zucchini, cut into ¼-inch rounds (about 3 cups)

1 tsp salt
Add salt to sliced zucchini. Hand toss. Wait 5 minutes and gently squeeze out excess water.

4 dates, soaked in 1/4 cup water

2 TBS lemon juice

2 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 tsp)

1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
Blend until smooth, including date water

Marinade the zucchini rounds in the blended mix ~ 30 minutes

10 oz. mushrooms, sliced

1/4 cup coconut aminos

2 TBS nutritional yeast

Marinade the mushrooms until soft, at least 5 minutes

1/4-1/2 cup almond feta

Directions: Divide the mushrooms into eighths and spread an eighth over each crust. Divided the zucchini into eighths and lay an eighths over each crust. Dot the top with the almond feta. Dehydrate for 2 or more hours to warm and meld the flavors.

Nutritional Facts for Onion Bread

Amount Per Serving

• Calories183.1
• Total Fat12.2 g
• Saturated Fat1.6 g
• Polyunsaturated Fat3.9 g
• Monounsaturated Fat6.5 g
• Cholesterol0.0 mg
• Sodium124.9 mg
• Potassium314.7 mg
• Total Carbohydrate16.9 g
• Dietary Fiber3.8 g
• Sugars1.3 g
• Protein3.7 g

• Vitamin A0.1 %
• Vitamin B-120.0 %
• Vitamin B-611.1 %
• Vitamin C15.2 %
• Vitamin D0.0 %
• Vitamin E18.7 %
• Calcium3.5 %
• Copper12.0 %
• Folate11.0 %
• Iron3.9 %
• Magnesium8.2 %
• Manganese18.0 %
• Niacin3.6 %
• Pantothenic Acid6.5 %
• Phosphorus13.2 %
• Riboflavin2.8 %
• Selenium9.3 %
• Thiamin4.5 %
• Zinc6.7 %

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Esophageal Cancer Education Foundation

Our dear friend Anne sent a text suggesting ECEF support group for my hubby. He "attended" his first monthly conference call last night. He was able to ask the question"which surgery is best". There were multiple answers, but all the answers boiled down to what his surgeon told him, the shorter one is easier as long as there are no complications. If there is a complication, which do occur 50% of the time, it is life threatening due to the incision being so close to the heart and lungs. There other thing he learn last night is, if one is willing to push oneself to eat and exercise, one does well. As long as he gains enough weight, he plans to have the esophagectomy August 12th.

My Hubby's lung biopsy report and Tuesday's follow-up appointment

My hubby's lobectomy follow-up appointment was Tuesday July 12th.

Even though each time they look at his esophagus it is improving with no tumor regrowth, they are insisting he must have the esophagectomy. The doctor also told us it was his favorite surgery and he wants to do more than the 1 every other month he does now. I told him that with so many people regularly using antacids and PPI's that wish will come true. He agreed.

He asked Al if he had turned vegan between the PET and the surgery, he couldn't remember. Al told them he had for 2 months but is now back eating a standard diet to try to gain any kind of weight. With the esophagectomy, he can expect to lose 10-20 pounds.

The doctor told us that the team met that morning to discuss the biopsy report, even though there were 5 spots on the PET on his left upper lobe, the team agreed it was stage 1a primary lung adenocarcinoma. They thin-sectioned and froze the entire lobe because they were skeptical of what they had seen and palpated the day of surgery. They also biopsied 6 lymph nodes around the lung, ALL were normal. The second largest (0.8x1 cm) one was the most likely one to be cancer (80%) and the largest one (1x1.4 cm) a close second (60%). The biopsy results showed only ONE malignant spot and the rest of the lung was completely normal - soft, moist, pink and not even any scar tissue or a leison. The largest spot was the only one found, and it was smaller including clean margins than originally seen on the PET. God is so faithful!!!

Everything You Need To Know About Inflammation

Whitney Page has a great article on inflammation titled Everything You Need To Know About Inflammation!!! We have been following an alkalizing diet for 6 years now to reduce our inflammation issues. Being pain and dis-ease free makes it is so worth it!!!

Dragon Fruit

The farmers market had Dragon Fruit. Since we had never tried one, we HAD to buy one. It is so beautiful, ours is a deep red with tiny black seeds. It was extremely ripe, but not nearly as sweet as we had anticipated tasting similar to a kiwi in taste.. Our son ate all but 2 bites with his breakfast. It would be a wonderful addition to a fruit salad bringing a brilliant color to any fruit salad.

drying tomatoes

We received 2 tomato plants from our neighborhood garden club in April. We planted them in a separate area because our garden area was "full" We were able to cover them when the hail hit our area TWICE this spring and so thankful we did. Our other tomato plants received hail damage leading to wilt but these two didn't. What bountiful plants these are!
We have enough to dry for our dried tomato recipes.
Drying them is so easy, slice to ~ 1/4 inch and lightly salt. Dry until it is leathery about 8 hours at 115.

it's stage 1, it's stage 1

Six months ago, the news stage 1 cancer would not be something most people would celebrate, but our lives have taken a much too common turn, as so many people we know, with my hubby's "out of the blue" cancer diagnosis.
April 1st he was admitted to the hospital for a GI bleed. April 2nd we were told it looked like esophageal cancer. The following week, the biopsy results were long high grade dysplasia Barrett's esophagus.  Three weeks later another biopsy and an esophageal cancer diagnosis. May 6th there was also a spot on the lung with the esophageal cancer being a little deeper than originally thought. On May 11th, the PET results of possibly lung cancer were told to us. The lung may be a metastasis from the esophagus.
After much research and talking with my GI,  my hubby contact Shaheen requesting a resectioning procedure of the esophagus. That was done May 31st. To Shaheen's surprise the tumor slipped out, but the biopsy indicated there was still cancer beneath the tumor. This was in agreement with the May 6th ultrasound biopsy.
June 11th my hubby went to Hippocrates in West Palm Beach for 2 weeks, a life style "boot camp". There he changed his diet to eating vegan, drinking green juice and wheatgrass, and came home turning out atrium into a microgreen farm.

There he was running 4 miles a day and felt like he was back in his 20's. He came home looking at least 10 years younger, even his silver hair is reversing to salt and pepper. He was in amazing shape.
June 30th, he had his lobectomy because the lung area was cancer; however, the esophagus had no tumor regrowth. July 7th we heard the lung is not a metastasis, just stage 1 cancer with no other treatments for the lung.
He is walking over 3 miles a day, but still on pain meds, ice packs, lanacane patches, heating pads, and still sleeping in the recliner. He is juicing daily and eating close to 90% raw, as the rest of the household.

Next we meet with the surgeon on the 12th to discuss when the esophagectomy might occur. My hubby wants to wait until he is as strong as he was going into the lobectomy, maybe August, maybe even later in the fall. I know the LORD is leading him.

We are so grateful for all the prayers, support, and love we have received since I thought he had a mild heart attack April 1st. And yes we are praising God and celebrating!!!!

Jackfruit BBQ

Our friend, Debbie, gave us a sampling of Jackfruit BBQ and we loved it.  We were able to find canned Jackfruit in brine through our co-op and ordered a case. We heard it takes HOURS to remove the fruit. We used our BBQ sauce recipe and served it on onion bread, topped with lettuce tomatoes and sprouts. 

Serves 3

Ingredients:

1/4 cup BBQ sauce of your choice

1 can Jackfruit, drained and rinsed

Directions:

Mix with a fork and the Jackfruit shreds easily.

July potluck 2016

We had our annual "Let's build living lasagna" potluck. Each person brought a layer, salad, appetizer, dessert or bread.

The layers are mushrooms, onion and peppers, spinach and herbs, cheese, sauce, cherry tomatoes, olives, and zoodles

garlic bread and living lasagna

Piquillo peppers

Salad

Kiwi Cheesecake